Planning pre-cruise time in Italy. Trains? Hotels?

[mrgabriel]

We're flying in to Rome a few days before our cruise, which departs Ravenna. We have a hotel in Ravenna for the night before the cruise but are wanting to spend a couple of days in Rome, then a couple more in Florence before heading to Ravenna.

 

Any hints or tips for booking train travel from Rome to Florence, then Florence to Ravenna? We travel by train in the UK pretty frequently and have had industrial actions impact travel before, so I'm a bit concerned about booking a train then finding that we need to pivot. Definitely want to have everything booked in advance.

 

Hotel suggestions are also welcome! Thanks in advance. 

[euro cruiser]

Strikes happen but are not common, however, if you're concerned you can simply purchase one of the trains that is guaranteed to go even during a strike.

 

The current list of guaranteed trains is only valid until June 8th, when the schedule update takes effect.  

 

This is where you find the list:  TABELLA_A_Treni_garantiti_DPLH.pdf (trenitalia.com)

 

If you would like help identifying specific trains once the new list is posted, come back here and ask.

 

As an example, in the current schedule the 9:25 train, #9308, is guaranteed.

Edited May 24 by euro cruiser

[mrgabriel]

Thank you @euro cruiser  Very helpful!

[CruiserBruce]

As mentioned here pretty frequently, strikes are announced in advance, and not that frequent or totally encompassing...they might only be in a single city, or only for a couple hours. If you search around the board, you will find references to websites that list the announced work actions...which are the vast majority of the issues. 

 

There are many threads here on hotels, activities, food, and train travel. Check out the thread pinned to the top of the board:

 

 

[euro cruiser]

As for the Florence to Ravenna leg, there are no direct trains between the two cities, all will require at least one connection.  I would only consider the single connection options.

 

The fastest options, which are two hours +/- five minutes, feature a Frecce train to Bologna (about 40 minutes) followed by a regional train to Ravenna (about one hour).  The Frecce trains all have assigned seats, the regional trains are first come, first served as far as seats go.

[mrgabriel]

17 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

As mentioned here pretty frequently, strikes are announced in advance, and not that frequent or totally encompassing...they might only be in a single city, or only for a couple hours. If you search around the board, you will find references to websites that list the announced work actions...which are the vast majority of the issues. 

 

There are many threads here on hotels, activities, food, and train travel. Check out the thread pinned to the top of the board:

 

 

Thanks for the links! We've had our UK travel impacted by job actions a few times so I'm always on the lookout for possible changes to our plans.